Theorycrafting Thoughts On New Classes (Patch 4.0 Beta)

[Boeroer]

Yes. I posted it quite early in the thread with my detailed Furyshaper description:

 

You can only have one ward at a time and they count as summons. So for example Furyshaper/Ghost Heart or -/Beckoner would be a suboptimal class combo.

[Saito Hikari]

Honestly, I know Arcane Archer isn't that weak, I've had time to seriously think after reading that giant post explaining your reasoning and I think I've narrowed down where my complaints really lie with the subclass.

 

1) It's not obvious which multiclass mechanics would have any effect on the Imbue abilities. It says a lot when we had to individually test a number of weapons and multiclass mechanics to see if they even interacted with Imbue in any way, and Arcane Archer is veering very close to (if not already at) 'do not consider multiclassing/must read this before attempting to multiclass' territory. Actually, I'm not even sure why there's even a distinction between weapons and spells in terms of what buffs will affect which type of attack. I feel that all it has achieved is promoting a perception in the general community where many consider the martial classes to have far more interesting multiclass interactions, and the mages (minus Cipher) should almost always be single classed as a result.

 

2) The Bond costs for Imbue abilities might be too high. It hugely discourages use of the other Ranger abilities, especially if you multiclass (at level 19 if you multiclass, you have 8 bond, which gives you two casts of the Imbue abilities that cost 3 bond, and 1 cast of something else before you run out). So far, all the builds I've come up with have actively avoided picking up most other Ranger abilities, just picking up a lot of passives instead. I suppose if you single class, this gives you room to pick up all the companion passives instead, though.

 

3) Imbue: Web and Imbue: Eora are too functionally similar in terms of end goal. One should be replaced with something else, though I've no idea with what.

[Boeroer]

1) fair enough

2) That's a problem that I identified right during beta release and that goes shared by all active abilities of a class that do kind of the same (e.g. deal damage) and are fed by one finite resource pool. Look at rogue, fighter, paladin etc: several abilities compete for the resource and usually you pick up one and skip the rest. It's not a problem that is unique to the Arcane Archer.

3) I think Eora and Binding Roots are a great combo. Especially those two effects (pull + immobilize). The one pulls enemies together and the second one prevents that they move by themselves. It results in very tightly packed hordes or enemies that a) pose no threat and b) can get rid off very conveniently via AoE abilities.
Why is there Imbue: Web while we can have Binding Roots would be my question. Good question . Something else would make more sense, I agree. At least for me. Imbue: Sleep or something would be nice. Or Imbue: Combust or so.

 

Edit: I write giant posts...? 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Boeroer

[Gregorovich]

Don't know if someone talked about that, sorry, if yes.

 

I've done some testing on the Forbidden Fist:

 

1) Mortification of the soul works and gives you 2 wounds as usual.

2) Forbidden Fist ability is at range of your own fist attack. It does NOT depend on the any weapon equipped

3) The range of the Forbidden Fist is affected with Instruments of pain

4) Damage of the Forbidden Fist (ability) seems to be affected with all the Cursed states present. That means if you are cursed 1 time - 25% damage bonus, 2 times - 50%, 3 times - 75%

5)Every Cursed state apply Raw DoT on the Monk. To curse or not to curse - that is the question:

Having 3 curses at once my Monk (multi with Pal 19th level) take 54 damage! Thats's too much. Has anybody checked that and how is it calculated? Every Forbidden Fist strike applies Cursed and prolongs the previous one. So if you use 3 Forbidden Fists you will have 3 status effects - Cursed each marked as X3, that means you have 3x3=9 DoTs simultaneously? I can't imagine how I get 54 damage other way... That's a suicide. Or you should never use more than 2 Forbidden Fists. 

 

Is this a bug or what?

Edited December 9, 2018 by Gregorovich

[Boeroer]

Nice testing. I guess you're not supposed to spam that ability. But wouldn't it get cleared very quickly if you have high RES and use Clarity of Agony in combination with Crucible of Suffering and Enduring Dance and a very tanky setup? You could get wounds quickly without getting hit, or not? Add the Lone Survivor Ring and the duration should reach 0.

Edited December 9, 2018 by Boeroer

[Gregorovich]

You're right, I just wanted to check a few things for myself quickly, I usually don't use monks.

It would also be possible to use Barring death's door.

 

Still I'm not sure if the stacking of the damage works as it is intended to be.

The drawbacks are that the Forbidden Fist will be more powerful on higher levels, while staying careful lower till you get the equipment and abilities, and that you won't be able to use other monk wound-requiring abilities often as their cost is increased too. Just not sure if the Forbidden fist worth it in such case. It just needs to be played more, perhaps

[brasilgringo]

 

With that said, Arcane Archer is weaker than standard Ranger at ranged DPS, and weaker than standard Wizard at nuking. Add in the Sharpshooter and Evoker subclasses, and Arcane Archer is shred to pieces, especially by a multiclass that combines the two (but even if you kept a single-class Sharpshooter you could invest in Arcana and nuke like an Arcane Archer; imbue are nice but hardly a game changer.)

I have a different opinion.

 

First of all I don't think that Assassin, Trickster or Streetfighter are straight out better than a vanilla Rogue. Their advantages and disadvantages balance each other out - sort of.

 

But there are several ways to circumvent the disadvantages and there are builds where certain subclasses are better than others - for example a Trickster is better for a tanky build than an Assassin.

 

I also don't think that the Barb subclasses are worse than the vanilla class. More niche maybe, but there are niches where they are def. better. Berserker is praised - but only because people think the crit conversion and the better inspirations outweigh the self damage - which they don't in my opinion. If you play a high level Berserker it's a big disadvantage actually. 

And the fact that you can circumvent confusion... well as I said: you can circumvent the disadvantages with most subclasses as you would try to do with any build: build out your strengths, circumvent the weaknesses. 

 

Same with the Arcane Archer.

 

I don't think he's worse than a Sharpshooter, Ghost Heart or a Stalker. Sharpshooters actually always suffer from a permanent speed malus that hampers their dps. Against enemies where AR is no problem they are straight out worse than other rangers. Stalkers are only good at melee range and require more micromanagement. With AI it's a pain to prevent Bonded Grief. Ghost Heart's animal companion can't do anything better than the normal AC but costs Bond AND counts towards the summoning limit. But you can find builds/cases where each of those makes sense and is a better pick than the others.

 

The Arcane Archer can hit several enemies with multiple spells using only one shot. As I already said: Imbue: Death at high levels is one of the things that can currently wipe a whole group of dummies with two shots if you build the Arcane Archer correctly. Because of the Arcana-ACC bonus you'll generate tons of crits with your imbue spell, the dmg number of Death Ring can be over 100 for each hit roll, you can at least trigger two ones with Driving Flight and three with an additional jump AND it has the chance to destroy targets that have low health. You can maybe see the synergy with the multi-triggering...

Three instances of Pull of Eora with one imbue shot with such high ACC will guarantee nothing leaves that area - especially when you combine it with Binding Roots(!). A very potent CC option - and you need no caster for that and not even a "dedicated" CC guy.

 

The disadvantages can be circumvented easily as with other subclasses: low health isn't a big deal because you will be ranged and thus will plan to play with lowish health and defenses anyway. The ACC pen is non-existent with the right weapons (which are not hard to come by).

 

I tested that class a lot now and I have not the impression that it's worse than the other subclasses. Same with the Furyshaper by the way. The others I have not really tried so I can't say.

 

That there are subclasses that are indeed better than the vanilla class (see Troubadour) doesn't mean that this should be done with every new subclass. Because it's boring if you are forced to pick the same subclass over and over again when you're somebody who cares for power.

 

At the moment I think it's just an assumed weakness than an actual one - like it was at the release of PoE where lots of people seriously found that Wizards are useless.

 

Having to level up a pure ranger Arcane Archer (no multiclass) just to get Imbue: Death Ring seems like a long way to go.  The impact at MC levels (stops at fireball/pull of eora) seems less impressive.  Maybe I'm not using Pull of Eora right .... 

 

Hard to see how a pure ranger can feel satisfying as a solo POTD attempt, too, or maybe solo vet.  I guess if you stack Arcana you just go scroll heavy on top of your imbues, and end up using Essence Interrupter or a similar weapon that doesn't suffer the acc penalty.   Still, if you're going to stack Arcana and use scrolls, I get the sense that approach would better complement other classes, vs just using Arcane Archer to be able to three-cast or 4-cast death ring (I think if you use Kitchen Stove with the 2-jump ability and driving flight, you can probably 4-cast it).

 

Open to see builds, though.

[Boeroer]

You're right, I just wanted to check a few things for myself quickly, I usually don't use monks.

It would also be possible to use Barring death's door.

 

Still I'm not sure if the stacking of the damage works as it is intended to be.

The drawbacks are that the Forbidden Fist will be more powerful on higher levels, while staying careful lower till you get the equipment and abilities, and that you won't be able to use other monk wound-requiring abilities often as their cost is increased too. Just not sure if the Forbidden fist worth it in such case. It just needs to be played more, perhaps

 

 

I suspect that the self damage will be even worse at higher levels - because it will scale with Power Level (all other sources of self damage like Berserker-Frenzy, Sacred Immolation and Alacrity do). And PL scaling is multiplicative. That means with high MIG and high PL you might kill yourself more quickly at high levels than at lower ones (if you don't take countermeasures).

Edited December 9, 2018 by Boeroer

[brasilgringo]

You're right, I just wanted to check a few things for myself quickly, I usually don't use monks.

It would also be possible to use Barring death's door.

 

Still I'm not sure if the stacking of the damage works as it is intended to be.

The drawbacks are that the Forbidden Fist will be more powerful on higher levels, while staying careful lower till you get the equipment and abilities, and that you won't be able to use other monk wound-requiring abilities often as their cost is increased too. Just not sure if the Forbidden fist worth it in such case. It just needs to be played more, perhaps

In my testing I was getting it to stack to 5 and it did OK damage, but I was spending a lot of time trying to handle the  curses through Clarity of Agony, Lone Wolf, etc and gear like Voidward (which I think lowered the damage). It didn't leave a lot of time for anything else.  And it's not like the Forbidden Fist even at 5 stacks was "One Punch Man" -- it was doing 100+ dmg but nothing to write home about.  Unless I'm not understanding what you can do with the class, it seems a lot weaker than Hellwalker and Nalpazca.

[Boeroer]

 

 

With that said, Arcane Archer is weaker than standard Ranger at ranged DPS, and weaker than standard Wizard at nuking. Add in the Sharpshooter and Evoker subclasses, and Arcane Archer is shred to pieces, especially by a multiclass that combines the two (but even if you kept a single-class Sharpshooter you could invest in Arcana and nuke like an Arcane Archer; imbue are nice but hardly a game changer.)

I have a different opinion.

 

First of all I don't think that Assassin, Trickster or Streetfighter are straight out better than a vanilla Rogue. Their advantages and disadvantages balance each other out - sort of.

 

But there are several ways to circumvent the disadvantages and there are builds where certain subclasses are better than others - for example a Trickster is better for a tanky build than an Assassin.

 

I also don't think that the Barb subclasses are worse than the vanilla class. More niche maybe, but there are niches where they are def. better. Berserker is praised - but only because people think the crit conversion and the better inspirations outweigh the self damage - which they don't in my opinion. If you play a high level Berserker it's a big disadvantage actually. 

And the fact that you can circumvent confusion... well as I said: you can circumvent the disadvantages with most subclasses as you would try to do with any build: build out your strengths, circumvent the weaknesses. 

 

Same with the Arcane Archer.

 

I don't think he's worse than a Sharpshooter, Ghost Heart or a Stalker. Sharpshooters actually always suffer from a permanent speed malus that hampers their dps. Against enemies where AR is no problem they are straight out worse than other rangers. Stalkers are only good at melee range and require more micromanagement. With AI it's a pain to prevent Bonded Grief. Ghost Heart's animal companion can't do anything better than the normal AC but costs Bond AND counts towards the summoning limit. But you can find builds/cases where each of those makes sense and is a better pick than the others.

 

The Arcane Archer can hit several enemies with multiple spells using only one shot. As I already said: Imbue: Death at high levels is one of the things that can currently wipe a whole group of dummies with two shots if you build the Arcane Archer correctly. Because of the Arcana-ACC bonus you'll generate tons of crits with your imbue spell, the dmg number of Death Ring can be over 100 for each hit roll, you can at least trigger two ones with Driving Flight and three with an additional jump AND it has the chance to destroy targets that have low health. You can maybe see the synergy with the multi-triggering...

Three instances of Pull of Eora with one imbue shot with such high ACC will guarantee nothing leaves that area - especially when you combine it with Binding Roots(!). A very potent CC option - and you need no caster for that and not even a "dedicated" CC guy.

 

The disadvantages can be circumvented easily as with other subclasses: low health isn't a big deal because you will be ranged and thus will plan to play with lowish health and defenses anyway. The ACC pen is non-existent with the right weapons (which are not hard to come by).

 

I tested that class a lot now and I have not the impression that it's worse than the other subclasses. Same with the Furyshaper by the way. The others I have not really tried so I can't say.

 

That there are subclasses that are indeed better than the vanilla class (see Troubadour) doesn't mean that this should be done with every new subclass. Because it's boring if you are forced to pick the same subclass over and over again when you're somebody who cares for power.

 

At the moment I think it's just an assumed weakness than an actual one - like it was at the release of PoE where lots of people seriously found that Wizards are useless.

 

Having to level up a pure ranger Arcane Archer (no multiclass) just to get Imbue: Death Ring seems like a long way to go.  The impact at MC levels (stops at fireball/pull of eora) seems less impressive.  Maybe I'm not using Pull of Eora right .... 

 

Hard to see how a pure ranger can feel satisfying as a solo POTD attempt, too, or maybe solo vet.  I guess if you stack Arcana you just go scroll heavy on top of your imbues, and end up using Essence Interrupter or a similar weapon that doesn't suffer the acc penalty.   Still, if you're going to stack Arcana and use scrolls, I get the sense that approach would better complement other classes, vs just using Arcane Archer to be able to three-cast or 4-cast death ring (I think if you use Kitchen Stove with the 2-jump ability and driving flight, you can probably 4-cast it).

 

Open to see builds, though.

 

As I said above: Imbue: Fireball works with Ring of Focused Flame and Scion of Flame. It should also work with Fire-PL-gear like Magran's Favor. Since the dmg of the Fireballs is not influenced by your weapon you can totally use a one handed ranged weapon in your main had and stuff like Sun and Moon or Magran's Favor in your offhand to gain additional PLs for the Fireballs (didn't test that). If you want to focus on that ability you can do that. You will generate a ton of crits with the double/triple Fireball. I think it will be a good use for 2 Bond points.

But for multiclasses I think Imbue: Eora is a lot more interesting.

[Boeroer]

it was doing 100+ dmg but nothing to write home about.

Eh?

 

I guess the point of forbidden fist is to have a monk who can get wounds without the need to get hit (Vanilla, Helwalker, Nalpasca) or to hit (Shattered Pillar).

 

You can build the toughest turtle and still do damage and generate wounds although you are untouchable while shrugging off afflictions and getting even more tanky because of that.   

Edited December 9, 2018 by Boeroer

[guildwriter]

Some thoughts on Tactician from a solo perspective:

• On PotD upscaled the penalty for not having an ally assist you is fairly irritating.  The -5 Accuracy isn't as much of an issue as the -1 Pen.  While Raw damage does circumvent this entirely (Animancer's Energy Blade for Melee and other Spell options), it makes your choices for melee and spells more limited as it is a global Acc/Pen debuff.
• Flanked can be achieved through any Perception affliction or Persistent Distraction.  While there are consumables such as Cinder Bomb or Shock Chain Trap that will also inflict the debuffs, the accuracy may not be high enough to overcome high end defenses.  Especially against bosses.  Therefore class choice matters quite a bit.
• As a result, enemies that are immune or resistant to perception afflictions are going to be an issue.  This can come in many forms like outright resistances/immunities or situational benefits like Slippery Mind.  This means you can't build the Tactician and assume you'll have infinite resources all the time in every fight.  There needs to be enough offensive power to push through certain areas.
• I'd argue that some kind of approach involving some mix of armor/deflection stacking and healing is necessary for most classes.  Inflicting mass AoE distracted from stealth is possible though and based on my testing of other classes so far, I think Assassin/Tactician could be an effective approach.  
• To me the most effective pairings to Tactician solo would be Trickster, Assassin, and Wizard (no dual).  Each of these classes has one or more methods available to not only inflict mass perception afflictions, but also methods to apply other salient debuffs or survival tricks.
• Trickster paired with Tactician can either tickle or overcome the deflection cap to make themselves unhittable for periods of time.  Biggest concern is an effective way to deal damage as riposte tanking doesn't work against ranged or casters and the -Pen really hurts in this instance.  Active weapon swapping is a possibility and is enabled by fighter's time reduction of weapon swaps skill.
• Wizard can easily hit the unhittable cap and has a wide variety of damage spells that can be used to overcome the Pen issues.  However the class is far more resource reliant than the previous example as most of the damage will be caused by spells.  As a result you could theoretically run out of resources if you aren't careful about playing right.  Though between empower and using grimoire of vaperous wizardry you have a lot of resources at hand even without brilliant.
• Assassin is interesting as between the +25 ACC bonus from stealth and +10 from Helm of the White Void, that nets a +35 Accuracy bonus against Fortitude.  Good chance against many targets that's enough to apply distracted against the entire group using Pernicious Cloud as its radius can grow to the entire screen with enough Int.  Which means you could easily restealth, stay in combat, regenerate resources used, and go back at it again.  Downside is that distracted is the weakest of all afflictions and thus is canceled by a resist.  Other issues are weapon pen and defenses are not nearly as strong as the previous examples.  

This all being said I still find the Tactician experience to be fairly wonky even with the bugfixes.  Getting this to work as often as possible will require a lot of effort.

Edited December 9, 2018 by guildwriter

[Frak]

Some thoughts on Tactician from a solo perspective:

 

I found the error. ;-)

 

Why would anyone want to use a subclass, designed for teamwork, solo?

That's like eating living cheese by not grilling it. Mmmm, grilled cheese. 

[Kaylon]

 

it was doing 100+ dmg but nothing to write home about.

Eh?

 

I guess the point of forbidden fist is to have a monk who can get wounds without the need to get hit (Vanilla, Helwalker, Nalpasca) or to hit (Shattered Pillar).

 

You can build the toughest turtle and still do damage and generate wounds although you are untouchable while shrugging off afflictions and getting even more tanky because of that.   

 

You can do that already using Mortification of the Soul. Also if you have high defenses you won't get hit by afflictions either. The point of the forbidden fist is to apply Enfeebled which comes with a very high cost (slow wound regen and self damage)

[Takkik]

 

Some thoughts on Tactician from a solo perspective:

 

I found the error. ;-)

 

Why would anyone want to use a subclass, designed for teamwork, solo?

That's like eating living cheese by not grilling it. Mmmm, grilled cheese. 

 

+1

Don't know if summon work to overcome the penalty, need to test it. You can regenerate discipline by interrupting abilities too, not only by flanking. Abilities that intterupt on graze/hit are your friends.

[guildwriter]

Summons or charmed enemies will work as it counts anything friendly with a collision circle.

 

The discipline regen is pretty marginal with the fix to Tactician where it only gives back discipline on a successful interrupt of an ability being cast.  Pretty much just a refund of the knockdown cost if you manage to get it off correctly.

 

Dunno, you can make a case that it's a better team subclass for sure.  But from playtesting I think it's oftentimes situational at best and a "win more" type thing.

Edited December 10, 2018 by guildwriter

[guildwriter]

You can do that already using Mortification of the Soul. Also if you have high defenses you won't get hit by afflictions either. The point of the forbidden fist is to apply Enfeebled which comes with a very high cost (slow wound regen and self damage)

 

That's about the only benefit I can see from it.  The damage ticks get nasty really fast.  Think at around four stacks or so it was doing 70 raw damage a pop.  The damage doesn't scale fast enough with the stacks to make it even remotely worth it.

 

To give some numbers.  Each stack of Forbidden Fist Curse is +25% damage to self and +6 raw (increases with level scaling).  Voidward does reduce the damage.  At two stacks on my MC Goldpact/Forbidden it's doing 17.7 raw per 3 seconds with Voidward on.  The thing is, it seems like each stack is getting the total amount of raw damage bonus.  So at one stack its a +25% damage to self.  At two stacks it's two +50% damage to self bonuses.  And so on.  At four stacks it does 70 raw damage per 3 seconds for 28 seconds.  That's WITH Voidward and Ring of the Solitary Wanderer and Clarity of Agony active.  To add insult to injury, the duration of the curse increases with monk PL.

 

But you get a +100% damage bonus with Forbidden fist attacks so it's all good!  And +14 Health each time a hostile effect expires!  I really hope these numbers are a bug with how the curse damage is stacking because this is a really bad joke.

 

So yeah, the only reason I can see to go forbidden fist over another monk is for the ready access to enfeeble.  Good luck getting it on more than two targets at a time without murdering yourself. 

 

The more I playtest these subclasses the less inspired I find them.

Edited December 10, 2018 by guildwriter

[Takkik]

Toying with Blood mage, can be fun. The big advantage is that you can keep spamming some specific spell levels. In my opinion it favor low level spells because you have more spells and more diversity (buff, dmg, afflictions) than other high level. Exemple at Lvl 2 you have lot of buffs and some cool spells for a blood mage like corrosove siphon or the unique draining magic missiles. With the sacrifice you don't have too choose. But it need more micro. And focus on spells that restaore life.

 

I still miss some flavor. Perhaps there will be some blood magic grimoire in the DLC (and hope some madness magic too). You don't have the temptation to sacrifice more health for more power. And right now no themed blood spells. Blood mage tend to be more 'evil', hunger for more power, ready to sacrifice allies etc...

 

 

EDIT: don't know if anyone reported it. Blood sacrifice dmg is random and don't depend of used spell slots (blood sacrifice dmg you even if you have all your spell slots). But it's the other way around. If the random dmg aren't enough, they don't restore high level spells you've used. Sometime BS didn't restored my only used lvl 7 spell slot. Need comfirmation, but I'm sure it will be more apparent on a single lvl 20 wizard.

Design wise, could mean it's intended to push you to spam lower level spells and not high level ones.

 

One thing they should add to Blood mage : when you kill yourself with Blood sacrifice, you need to go with a 'bang'! A blood nova, or summon for a limited time a blood avatar.

 

For a battlemage tactician, I just noticed wizard summon don't engage. Never noticed before, but phontom or tentacles they don't threaten enemies and so don't help you with the accuracy malus.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Takkik

[MaxQuest]

But you get a +100% damage bonus with Forbidden fist attacks so it's all good! And +14 Health each time a hostile effect expires! I really hope these numbers are a bug with how the curse damage is stacking because this is a really bad joke.

Do agree that damage bonus is way to low.

You get the FF cost doubled, tripled, quadrupled, and only +25%, +50%, +75% and so on, bonus instead. Plus it pushes the Forbidden Curse expiration time away.

 

Also do agree with Kaylon, that the main selling point here is Enfeebled effect.

 

P.S. Perhaps there could be some shenanigans made with standing under periodic afflictions like Chill Fog (while having Strand of Favor and Clarity of Mind) in order to get wounds and especially hp, every 3s. Or having some party member with Stalkers Patience pocking on the monk, in order to apply wounding DoT... but with 14hp restored it doesn't look good enough.

 

EDIT: don't know if anyone reported it. Blood sacrifice dmg is random and don't depend of used spell slots (blood sacrifice dmg you even if you have all your spell slots). But it's the other way around. If the random dmg aren't enough, they don't restore high level spells you've used. Sometime BS didn't restored my only used lvl 7 spell slot. Need comfirmation, but I'm sure it will be more apparent on a single lvl 20 wizard.

It looks like there are 3 tiers of self damage: 5, 10 and 15. And these values are increased by +10% per your PL (including the bonus from Blood Sacrifice itself).

The tier gets selected at random; and depending on it you receive respective damage and get restored 1 spellusage of respective rank (range).

 

I don't know yet what the exact mapping is. But I guess that if you single-class and have access to all 9 ranks then:

- tier 1: you receive 5 * (1 + 0.1 * PL) damage; and restore a random spellusage of rank 1-3

- tier 2: you receive 10 * (1 + 0.1 * PL) damage; and restore a random spellusage of rank 4-6

- tier 3: you receive 15 * (1 + 0.1 * PL) damage; and restore a random spellusage of rank 7-9

 

And if you are lower level, than the ranges are somehow more narrow.

Although dunno how it works when base PL is not divisible by 3.

Edited December 10, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Archaven]

I thought their Accuracy bonus would be smaller. +16 indeed ends up being pretty high.

 

I still wouldn’t choose Arcane Archer over Sharpshooter, a Wizard, or a Sharpshooter/Wizard. Being pigeonholed into a very few weapons or specific multiclass combinations to avoid a penalty doesn’t sit right with me. Appreciate that YMMV.

 

unfortunately this is how poe2 subclasses were designed in my opinion. the 55 combinations and "infinite" combinations adding the subclass possibly just gimmicks. it's more like a puzzle or trap. only certain combinations are viable or better. some combination of subclasses can become quite subpar depending on the combination.  but maybe is really impossible to design a game where any multi-class combination are DPS viable? if that's the case each class should have one or two DPS skills.

[guildwriter]

I'd say a majority of the vanilla PoE2 subclasses work as intended and are quite viable.  There are picks like Wizard Slayer and Corpse Eater that are DOA.  But by in large the benefits and maluses on the subclasses are pretty fair.  These latest ones are where things have gotten out of hand.  Especially the scaling.  The damage bonus makes sense if you need to keep the game in line for normal and so on.  But on PoTD upscaled they are a bad joke.  I've seen SSS enemies with 1k~ hp that weren't even bosses.  50-80 damage a swing for four wounds to kill yourself in 15 seconds?  You can keep it.  The stacking cost alone is bad enough and throws the tempo of the class.  Make Enfeebled hit on crit if need be but these numbers need some heavy changes.

 

This is a whinging for a different topic but to be brief: PoE2 suffers from a lack of normalization, or whatever they're using as their rubric no longer works as they intend.

[Takkik]

There is in my opinion a design flaw with difficulty scaling. Most classes have finite resources, but as you push the difficulty, you have more chance to miss (and waste resources), more enemies and they are strongers, that make fights drag in length. It's why classes with infinite resources fit better deadfire 2 new system in my opinion, because they don't loose potency as fight last longer. They scale better.

 

Now, perhaps it's just an impression, I get the feeling they add more way to regenerate/get brilliant inspiration. You have the new tactician & blood mage that can potentialy have infinite resources. I would not be surprised there is more source of brilliant through items in the dlc (I noticed one of the librarian NPC in the stream used a spell Deep Learning that give them Brilliant + insight).

I think they should let the chanter have brilliant too like before now the inspiration have been toned down.

 

I don't mind long fight, but when that end up with auto attack only for lot of your character that not really interesting.

[Climhazzard]

 

You can do that already using Mortification of the Soul. Also if you have high defenses you won't get hit by afflictions either. The point of the forbidden fist is to apply Enfeebled which comes with a very high cost (slow wound regen and self damage)

 

That's about the only benefit I can see from it.  The damage ticks get nasty really fast.  Think at around four stacks or so it was doing 70 raw damage a pop.  The damage doesn't scale fast enough with the stacks to make it even remotely worth it.

 

To give some numbers.  Each stack of Forbidden Fist Curse is +25% damage to self and +6 raw (increases with level scaling).  Voidward does reduce the damage.  At two stacks on my MC Goldpact/Forbidden it's doing 17.7 raw per 3 seconds with Voidward on.  The thing is, it seems like each stack is getting the total amount of raw damage bonus.  So at one stack its a +25% damage to self.  At two stacks it's two +50% damage to self bonuses.  And so on.  At four stacks it does 70 raw damage per 3 seconds for 28 seconds.  That's WITH Voidward and Ring of the Solitary Wanderer and Clarity of Agony active.  To add insult to injury, the duration of the curse increases with monk PL.

 

But you get a +100% damage bonus with Forbidden fist attacks so it's all good!  And +14 Health each time a hostile effect expires!  I really hope these numbers are a bug with how the curse damage is stacking because this is a really bad joke.

 

So yeah, the only reason I can see to go forbidden fist over another monk is for the ready access to enfeeble.  Good luck getting it on more than two targets at a time without murdering yourself. 

 

The more I playtest these subclasses the less inspired I find them.

 

 

Top this off with the fact it barely generates any wounds, therefore is unable to use 2/3rds of it's abilities, and the subclass is basically worthless unless you really want to enfeeble someone for some reason.

 

I was trying to mess around with multi class combinations to create an out of the box version of this class that could generate wounds at anywhere near the rate of a normal monk, but you can't even come close.  Chill Fog/Pale elf is a possibility, but not out of the box because the blind lasts to long without specific equips.  And even when you do get it working you're still not going to end up at anywhere near ten wounds from it.  Tanglefoot is also a possibility, but both these abilities have a 4.5 second cast time, and you're not going to generate a decent amount of wounds from them until nearly 30 seconds into the combat.  A normal monk, helwalker, or Nalpazca; at endgame, literally only have to get hit a few times to cap their wounds; and a shattered pillar is generating two wounds per hit, maybe one if you're built as a tank.  All generating many times more wounds than you'll ever generate as a forbidden fist.  There are a few situations where your wound generation might barely be adequate, like when fighting the auto charm fampyr, but that's seriously situational compared to what other monks get.

 

My suggestion, just for wound generation (so ignoring the ridiculous amounts of self damage for now), would be to give the monk passive wound generation when their soul is cursed, and to increase the wounds from expiring effects to 2 from 1.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Climhazzard

[Boeroer]

Add to this that a Nalpasca, Helwalker and vanilla Monk can generate wounds very steadily and reliably with any form of self damage (for example Alacrity, Berserker Frenzy, Blood Sacrifice and so on) without losing Enduring Dance.

[Takkik]

I would love to heard what is the intended design. Bad wound generation that make hard to use wound abilities and the dmg bonus apply only to the new attack, that make you only use this one? I like the idea of curse and ability to build it, but what's the point?

 

The curse dmg bonus could apply to all monk attacks. You generate wound only when cursed. You generate wound only when attacking enemies afflicted by your debuff/curse.

Or if you want a different way to generate wound, you gain wounds when you apply some afflictions.

 

The problem I find is that a solo forbidden fist don't have any way to produce wounds outside of the curse. Getting debuffs to remove mean getting dmg. Just better to be a vanilla monk?

 

If you want a kamikaze monk hellwalker already do it with no problem to generate wounds.